I knew this was going to be a tough book to get through even without the gift of clairvoyance. It’s the middle book in a trilogy and we all know those are the ones filled with the gut-wrenching tragedy. So I stared at it there on the shelf and put it off a bit as I screwed up my courage. Finally, I began…yeah, this was tough alright and it only got worse. It ended on an ominous note setting thing up neatly for the big grand finale of the last book.

If you haven’t worked it out yet from my words, this book absolutely must be read in order. It’s not so much a new book and story in a series as just the second volume to the same story if that makes sense. It picks up right where book one left off.

I hesitate to even summarize because it would be one large spoiler for book one. So for the first time ever, I will do no summation of the storyline. Instead, I will give you my impressions and a few quotes. This book is very quote-able.

Evelyn ‘Scout’ Keats and Lucian Patras are hotter than a firecracker in love and passion. She is the submissive to his dominate and they both revel in their play and sensual activities. She is no longer the shy, scared virgin, but a woman. Not to say that she has arrived. Evelyn is still finding her way. She equates Lucian with safety and home, but she can’t quite trust him with her feelings in case she gives them and eventually he sets her aside. She needs to succeed on her own and have an independence so no matter what, she has a fallback.

Lucian loves Evelyn with all his dark needy being. She is his everything and it doesn’t escape his notice that she has never said she loves him. His deal with the devil has impacted everything and looms over their future like an ominous cloud. He gambles on her trusting him and loving him as much as he loves her. He works feverishly to keep the one thing that he cannot lose, but he may lose her anyway and then where will he be? He is also confronted by his issues with his dad and what he has always assumed about his father’s choices in regard to the family he abandoned for another woman. Lucian was determined that he would never be like that man who was afraid to feel and say what he felt.

It was raw and it was coarse, but it was completely honest. His need for her flowed from his body to hers as his heart beat into her back. However she had imagined love, it was not this. This was not something soft and delicate, tied up in flowers and bows. This was wild and honest, durable and true. He loved her, and when his feelings poured out of him like this, it was so potent that there was no denying that it was real. p. 42 Evelyn from Breaking Out

Parker has waited for Scout to grow up to be his and now in a twist of fate, he has his chance. He will do what it takes to outwit Lucian and end the thing between Lucian and Scout. He feels he knows her better than anyone. He wants to be her savior, her knight. He makes his deal with Lucian and now is on the cusp of getting what he wants- Scout as his prize. Scout is the unknown variable and what will she do with the truth when it all comes out.

“You see, Lucian, when you love someone, you do so without choice. It’s a force of its own and no amount of time or distance can dissolve such feelings.” p. 234 Tibet from Breaking Out

Tibet may be right about love, but Lucian, Evelyn-Scout and Parker are all caught up in the tangled force part of love or what looks like love. And it’s not pretty.

It all comes crashing down in a final scene that explodes everything up to this point wide open. Now it’s anyone’s game including Slade slinking around in the shadows with his secret agenda. I can’t wait to see what happens next. I have never been one for love triangles and this is not really one of those, but I am so addicted to Evelyn’s story and which man she will pick or will she pick either of them as she comes into her own from being the homeless street rat to the glamorous woman of Lucian Patras to now? Well, she must figure that out.

I would recommend this series to those who enjoy red hot passion, deeply emotional and long developing relationship and character growth in a Contemporary Romance.

My thanks to Penguin for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was born and raised near Sacramento, CA. I have read since I was four years old and developed tastes that run the gamut of literature. I went away to college and have a degree in education, a certificate in family history research, and a certificate in social work. I worked for a non-profit agency with low income families for 20 years which included being responsible for the children’s library and promoting/teaching adult literacy. I have lived in Southeast Michigan for the last 18 years and I am currently a book addicted homemaker with a cat and husband who keep me grounded. Recently, I made it a challenge to review each book that I have read as a favor to author friends who said reviews are important. I have done reviews for Good Reads, Amazon, eBay, and Smashwords, but mostly at Goodreads and Amazon.

Oh, these are so not the full story in one. In fact, I doubt I could have read book two if I hadn’t already had book three on the shelf ready for me. The first one blew me out of the water, but this second one was one long finger biter as I wait for Evelyn to catch on to what was going on. I felt book one was the better of the two for how it impacted me, but book three may change my mind.

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4 years ago

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